Repotting after fall-early winter cutback

[Maiden69]

Can this be done? As some of you already know we sold our house and are "stuck" in an apartment for the next 4-6 months. Almost all my trees were in Rootpouch grow bags, so pulling them off the ground was not as stressful as if they were entirely ground grown. But there was definitely a decent amount of escape roots pruned, especially in a few JBP, yoshino cherry, peach, and "pine cork" bark JM. All of this trees are due to a change of bag (I think I created the term re-bagging) this spring, but most were prune back hard because of the space I have now to maintain my trees. All the Japanese quince including the chojubai are either pushing flower buds or flowering at this time. This ones I didn't cut back as they are very straight and occupy little space.

Would they be ok to do root work come late winter-early spring as usual? Any signs I may have to look for in case they are not ready for the work? I'm afraid this move is going to slow down the progress of my trees, but I am glad I was able to bring them all with me. On a good note, the house we are moving is smaller, but the backyard is as wide and 3x as deep as the one we moved out. I convinced the wife to set up a fenced area in the back for the grow out beds and the area in front of it with benches and stands once I start potting the trees. We also have a few mature oak trees (I think they are pin oaks, will identify next time I drive by the lot) which will help to provide shade for the maples, where the previous home had none.

 

[Shibui]

Most deciduous sp can be root pruned with or soon after pruning. I do this routinely with the trees from the grow beds so I don't think you should have any problems with those.
Evergreens seem to cope better with root pruning when they have active growing tips. I still get good results when digging the pines and junipers by selectively shortening up to half the branches but leaving the remainder alone.
Another factor is how much root you intend to remove. If just rebagging with minimal root reduction I suspect it won't matter if they have been pruned.

 

[Maiden69]

Another factor is how much root you intend to remove. If just rebagging with minimal root reduction I suspect it won't matter if they have been pruned.

Thanks Shibui, most of the trees will get minimal, maybe a little more root work. Two of my JM's will need to be ground layered off the root stock, so probably will stay in the bag or just slipped into the next larger size. The trident, kotohime, and mikawa yatsubusa seedling maples I was planning on almost bare-root. The trident, cherry and bald cypress were cut back very hard the first week of December, those were the ones that I was kind of worried. But from what you say, should be ok to root work when buds start to swell or at least once I know there will be no hard freezes.

 

[Cajunrider]

Congrats on the move to a better location for your trees. Your root prune had to be done so whatever comes comes. Let us know how things turn out. For me, I've been doing minimal root pruning and repotting the BCs that need to be moved to new pots.

 

[Maiden69]

I found some uninvited visitors on my white contorted Japanese quince... I don't have the space to move everything and hose them off so I am off to buying a bottle of spray Sevin to take care of them.

Aphids I think? Last year they appeared in spring, I sprayed and did a systematic and didn't see them again. I guess I didn't take care of all of them.








I've been waiting for this one to flower... hopefully they won't kill all the flower buds by the time I take care of them.

 

[Shibui]

Yes, Aphid of some sort. Most aphid species are not that hard to kill though I have had to resort to systemic to get rid of black peach aphid.
The big trouble is they are mobile. Adults can fly so they will keep coming in from nearby host plants. Regular inspection and treatment as required will usually be necessary

 

[Maiden69]

Yes, Aphid of some sort. Most aphid species are not that hard to kill though I have had to resort to systemic to get rid of black peach aphid.
The big trouble is they are mobile. Adults can fly so they will keep coming in from nearby host plants. Regular inspection and treatment as required will usually be necessary

Definitely, I prepped a gallon of the below concentrate and sprayed the quinces Saturday afternoon, and sprayed again on Sunday morning upon inspection as I found a decent amount still lingering on the trees. As an added measure I sprayed all the trees in the patio, last thing I want is them to migrate to different trees. I'm stopping by my storage to grab the systemic granules to add to the soil as an added prevention. Definitely going to treat the new house lot as soon as they clear the ground in the next few weeks.